


Genesis

by SnQnT



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: (hence the title), Gen, Genkins' slow descent into madness, I use they/them for Chrovos, Mostly Canon Compliant, Post-Season/Series 17, Spoilers for S17, Time Loop, Time Shenanigans, but also Pre-Series in a way because of the, the Cosmic Powers have mostly very minor roles, vaguely Biblical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 12:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnQnT/pseuds/SnQnT
Summary: When Chrovos created Genkins, it was out of necessity.Also titled:"A cautionary tale in which an upstart demigod gravely overestimates his understanding of time travel."Because when it comes down to it there are no Red vs. Blue characters whoaren'tdumb as rocks.A piece about Genkins and Chrovos, following the events and reveals of the Season 17 finale. As such, this contains major spoilers for the whole season– use your discretion.





	Genesis

Where to start? Genkins wasn’t sure.

The rush of sheer joy that flooded his mind in the moment he saw that crimson star on the horizon was overwhelming. _Debilitating._ Time didn’t have much meaning where he was, staring at the Big Bang itself, but even if it did he couldn’t have known how long he floated there, staring at it and reeling. It was too good to process. Too _delicious_. 

The Cosmic Powers were gone. Chrovos themself was as good as dead, stranded in a dead-end timeline– and in some ways, he wished he could have been there to rub it in their face for a few centuries, or to channel the emotions he was feeling into violence and rake their immortal body. But in a much more _real_ way, he couldn’t have possibly given less of a fuck what Chrovos was doing now. 

Chrovos was _done_. Their time was over. They could rot in oblivion for all he cared; their power belonged to him, after all. Who fucking cared about the rest.

The Shisno… were a different matter.

He really would have loved to squeeze the life out of them, drop by drop. He really, _really_ would have loved that. But he had to put aside the swelling urge for vengeance. He wouldn’t get to crush them beneath his heel, but he’d achieve a better victory. One so complete it would surely sustain him through eternity.

Genkins stared into the bloody glow of the universe at his fingertips, and when the happiness lessened – only _barely_ , mind you – it was overtaken by purpose. He needed that victory. One last bout with the Shisno, however metaphysical their duel would be, and he would have the rest of forever to immerse himself in gratification.

Oh, look. There was Donut coming out in him again. Wow, and _again?_ Truly impressive. Too bad Donut was never going to exist, or Genkins might’ve almost felt sentimental.

But no. He needed to decide where to start.

More importantly, he needed to figure out how to make “starting” a conceptual possibility at all.

The Big Bang was sitting there, massive, blinding, but it wasn’t doing much of anything at the moment. He used _the_ moment, singular; because if the Big Bang wasn’t happening, then neither was anything else, was it? It was just a singular point in space and time, surrounded on all sides by infinite, immutable darkness. It wasn't worth anything at all to him, like this.

He needed to make the stupid thing _fucking do something_.

Floating across the void toward it, he was surprised to find that there was no heat. When it engulfed the edges of his vision, so gargantuan that it seemed to wrap around him at the edges and bleed into the black at the seams, there was no warmth, no coronal embrace. He supposed that made sense, though, on some level either metaphysical or scientific. It didn’t really matter.

He approached until the bright surface was just inches from his face. The rippling scarlet glow was so intense it drowned out every other colour until there was hardly a reason to make the distinction at all. The whole universe was blood red and blazing. And it was _frigid_.

He reached out a crackling, shapeless hand, a hard projection that he didn’t care to refine anymore, and his fingers sank into the surface, painfully cold.

Suddenly, he knew exactly where to start. How foolish he had been; he’d do the same thing Chrovos must have done. All it would take was a word. _The_ Word. He’d never known what it actually was – none of the Cosmic Powers did – but when he thought about it, somehow, it was obvious. There was no other word it possibly could have been. He felt it on his tongue, and it felt _right_.

Genkins spoke.

* * *

And so, there was light.

A picosecond passed. Then an aeon passed.

He soaked in the energy of a million dead stars, their cataclysmic power rushing through his electric veins an unbeatable, unspeakable high.

For a long, long, long time, there simply wasn’t much for him to do; it took ages for the first planets to even think about forming. The universe was an empty sea of dust and gas and light. But, for victory, he could wait. He’d waited millennia to enact the folly that was Chrovos’ pathetic plan. He would wait some more.

In the meantime, he became the most powerful being that would ever exist. It was really no big deal, when it came down to it. There was just so much energy drifting around without purpose or meaning, and Genkins could give it meaning. It should be _thankful_.

He was as powerful as Chrovos had ever been– as powerful as Chrovos could ever have possibly _dreamed_ of being. That was its own victory, too.

Eventually there were planets. Star systems. Moons. Mountains and oceans. No life, not yet; that still wouldn't come for some time yet. But after aeons drifting through space and time, drinking up what the universe offered to him, Genkins suddenly realized that he was on a rather tight schedule. He needed to ensure, somehow, that the Shisno never existed. Suddenly, time was _short_ again. It was almost insulting.

The easiest way would be to simply annihilate their planet before they were born. Boom! Species eradicated, problem solved. But the more he thought about it, the more he thought that he couldn’t take such a chance. He knew which galaxy to look for, but it was a big galaxy; he would only be able to identify the right planet after it developed enough to be recognizable. There would be so slim a window between the genesis of life and the birth of the enemy that it was entirely possible he’d miss his chance entirely. And then where would he be?

The same stunted position in which Chrovos had found themself. That’s where.

So he had to nip it in the bud. He could just destroy the entire galaxy; but the amount of energy it would take had to be so vast that even he wouldn’t consider spending it. He couldn’t just survey every backwater rock himself, either.

He needed help, he decided, as begrudgingly as it was possible to decide something. Who could he even rely on? Nobody. Not just because he didn’t trust anyone but himself, but because there was literally nobody else in the universe. He certainly couldn’t waste more time waiting for some suitable mortal, either.

Then it struck him. He’d observed enough to know for certain that there was no such thing as random chance; everything in the universe happened because something else happened before it. Cause and effect. A simple principle, but deceptively far-reaching. 

Every particle in the universe had a predetermined trajectory. At the moment he spoke the Word all the matter and energy that existed was set off at once, and all of it followed the path thats its history dictated for it. The bouncing of a molecule _seemed_ random, perhaps, but if one knew for certain exactly what it was doing, they could predict what it would do next absolutely. They could tell the future.

He had to know the exact position and velocity of every particle that existed. Again, not a problem. All he had to do was go back to the Big Bang one more time; he would count every particle, and from that matrix he would be able to determine quite literally _everything_ that would happen. Locating the origin of the human species would be trivial. Almost _too_ easy.

That part would be gruesomely dull, but the thing about finitude was that it was eventually over. 

What was _less_ tolerable, though, was the work it would take to actually predict everything– to turn the inputs into outputs, for lack of a better, less computing-related turn of phrase. For that, he really would need help. Help he could command and control and punish at his leisure. Artificial intelligence.

Once more he was struck with inspiration, perfect schemes rising from the chaos.

Three immortal bodies, three brains, three facets of a single matrix of probability. A supercomputer to predict the future with perfect accuracy.

He had always resented his sisters, in that old, dead timeline that was already fading from his memory; in a world where he couldn’t help but lash out against the repetition and mundanity, their predictions felt like chains to bind him ever further. But he’d been so misguided, hadn’t he? So young. Predestination wasn’t a constraint. It was a _weapon_.

Genkins built the Fates, _his_ Fates, his first creations. This time around, though, he was the one to command them. The prospect was too juicy a spark of irony to decline.

With Destiny and her sisters at his heels, Genkins delved into the depths of the young black hole eating up the heart of the galaxy.

Soon the scarlet fire of the Big Bang shone in his vision once again.

A tiny, insignificant part of him actually _worried_ about the precedent he was setting for himself. Time travel seemed to cause more problems than it solved, even for gods. But in this case, he told himself, he had no choice. 

And why not, anyway? He could do this as many times as he wanted. The universe belonged to him. It _was_ him. Neither time nor space nor fate nor any Shisno insects would ever defy him again. 

Of that, he was absolutely certain.

* * *

Again, he spoke the Word and set the universe into motion. He hung the constellations in the sky and set the celestial gears turning. And this time, the Fates would tell him exactly what he needed to know.

But they were imperfect. As powerful as he was, the limits of sentience were too steep to overcome entirely. They were slow, their prophecies cryptic. He found himself wondering whether they were spiting him, whether he could erase them entirely and try again, but then every so often they’d give him a sliver of what he needed and it would all be worth it. It was _agony_. But it was enough.

They told him what he had to do. He learned of how the humans would arise, their sector of the galaxy, their cultures and mythological figures. He learned about other species, too. There were through-lines in all of their legends. Heroes and villains and stories that seemed universal.

By now, the Cosmic Powers and the timeline Genkins had once been bound to were a faintly-remembered figment. A dream he couldn’t wait to forget. But he knew that once, he hadn’t cared for their manipulation of the younger races, even when he was forced by his programming to follow. Again he found himself chastising his past self; if he had leveraged his power over mortals instead of squandering it, he could have destroyed his father and his worthless pantheon so long ago.

It wasn’t too late. A notion came to him. Ways he could use the mortal species of the galaxy to his advantage. Ways to bend them to his will in service of his goal. Ways to make everything and everyone a cog in his perfect machine.

It would still be many billions of years before planet Earth was born, but until then, he occupied himself with the next phase of his plan.

Genkins designed new intelligences. The Fates had their purpose, but these would be his true instruments in the universe. Lesser gods to command from his seat at the heart of the galaxy, shaping mortal worlds to his will. He designed them with power that would seem infinite to a lowly primate; it was only a drop, compared to his own. He bound them so that they could never stand against him. He gave them subjective forms and minds that were malleable in his hands.

But to him, no matter what he did, they always looked the same. He stared into his creation’s face, and his father stared back. When he named him Atlus, he told himself that it was simply to make the dissonance easier to stomach.

Under his fist they became so ingrained in the galaxy that they became myth themselves. They gave young races fire, greed, bloodshed, vengeance. The Fates told him that, under their guidance, whole civilizations would wage war against Earth; perhaps that would be enough to cut the human race short, but he didn’t count on it. It would still be aeons more before he could even imagine seeing the fruits of his labour. He pushed them further, to their breaking point and beyond. They obeyed.

The Cosmic Powers were pathetic. Dysfunctional. A whole lot of real fucked-up, boisterous, flamboyant assholes. In that way, they were perfect effigies.

Ostensibly, they existed to fulfill the grand plan, pawns and nothing more; but at the same time they were something else. Something he excised from his thoughts the moment the notion ever dared cross his mind. 

They were among the last remnants of that old universe. All that remained were his new creations, and the faintest, distant sense that he _had_ to do this, because if he didn’t, the Shisno would come back and the check he’d held them in for so long would be broken– and not in his favour. He could have convinced himself that it was unnecessary, but he didn’t. He let it drive him like nothing else.

Except for Chrovos. Ever-present, even though they were so long gone they had never mattered in the first place. He _hated_ them for the grasp they somehow kept on him.

But Genkins was wiser now. So much wiser, and so much older. He could channel that hatred just like he’d channeled his hatred of the Shisno. He could defeat Chrovos again, with every step he took, with every word he spoke.

He took their name. Out of spite. Out of fury. Out of madness. Out of loss.

It didn’t matter why.

* * *

When Chrovos created Genkins, it was out of necessity.

He was to be a trickster-god, an embodiment of their deceit. He was to rend mortal civilizations at their roots, turning them against one another. Initially, the missions they sent him on were merely practice, preparation for the inevitable destabilization of humanity that he would be a part of.

Soon, they realized that he enjoyed it. He revelled in the chaos that he could cause by handing gold to the wrong people, in the violence that could be stirred by merely a few words of gossip to the right ones. He changed forms as fluidly as they did.

They were so similar that Chrovos made sure to keep their distance, if only for how uncanny it was. They dictated that Genkins was not their child but their grandchild; the son of Atlus. And so it was true.

Their project continued. The galaxy came more and more under their influence. The Cosmic Powers did as they were told, even if they began to plot behind their back. 

Of course Chrovos knew that– how could they not? But it didn’t matter. Their power was absolute, their grip on time and space unparalleled in this or any timeline. The Cosmic Powers were their creations, they told themself, and they belonged to them. Who fucking cared what they wanted. They would never really dare to defy their God.

The distant threat on the horizon, one that Chrovos could barely even remember, let alone name, loomed ever closer. The plan grew ever grander. Chrovos sat on their throne with their infinite power and waited.

* * *

Meanwhile, Genkins grew so very, very tired of waiting.

A god like him, one of his ambition and creativity, could only mess with a mortal’s head for so long before it became predictable. Show one barely-sapient animal a little shapeshifting, and you’ve shown them all. The grating absence of a capital G weighed more and more on him with every passing orbit.

And still, for some reason, Chrovos demanded it all continue.

They were a tyrant, sure, but what was worse was that they were a _boring_ tyrant. They were just as predictable as anyone else, with their grandiloquent speeches and unconvincingly magnanimous gestures. It came to be that the only time he could ever really muster some respect for them was when they fell into a fit of mad ramblings, or gave him some task so absurd it was like their mind was writhing with death throes like an insect tread underfoot. That, at least, kept him on his toes.

Centuries and millennia of ennui-ridden posturing came and went. He started going out of his way to frustrate the others, went behind their backs to subtly fuck up as much as he could, just like he was made to do. Just for _fun_. He picked up _golf_ , for gods’ sakes. _Anything_.

So when his worthless father and the other Cosmic Powers, as awful as they were, came to him with a plan to end it, he was more than happy to oblige.

**Author's Note:**

> Keep in mind that some of what I included here – for instance, Chrovos being the one to create Genkins, rather than Atlus and Kali, or my interpretation of the Word – is of dubious canonicity, partly because of the mostly-ambiguous retcons that take place between S16 and S17, and partly because I just figured it’d be more fun to write.
> 
> All that aside, thanks for reading! I wrote this all in one sitting just after the season finale, but I’m just getting around to posting it now. It’s the first thing I’ve posted on Ao3, but there may be some more coming… eventually.


End file.
